#<- tag if I end up deciding to liveblog this
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rereading The Tournament At Gorlan (and RA as a whole)
[Image ID: a simple pencil drawing of Crowley and Halt sticking their heads and hands around a wall. A photo above the drawing (edited on) says “He took up a position behind the water barrel, where he could see through the triangular gap left between it and the wall by the tapered top of the barrel. Crowley joined him, standing a little taller so he could peer over Halt's shoulder. End ID]
#ranger's apprentice#cassian rereads RA#<- tag if I end up deciding to liveblog this#crowley meratyn#halt o’carrick#the tournament at gorlan
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me, first watching wtdsik: i will not become a mega fan of kalego i will not. i refuse. yes he shows hints of caring for his students occasionally but--
episode s2 ep 12 kalego' home visit: hi
me: FUCK.
#shut up danni's talking#danni liveblogs#danni liveblogs wtdsik#i knew from the second i saw he'd be their homeroom teacher that it'd end up like this#i adore these characters sm guy you don't understand#i have been v lucky what whatever spoilers never sunk in before i blacklisted the tag#so all of this is COMPLETELY new to me i have no prior experience w this fandom my brain is fkn thriving on the new enrichment#i have to keep stopping myself periodically so i don't go through it all so fast i barely comprehend it#bc then it's a blink and you'll miss it minor hyperfixation that i'll forget in less than a week#its happened before w shows/animes w short seasons/content and sometimes longer ones#those i blitz through and catch up but my enthusiasm burns up before i get to the next installment so i fall behind then forget it rip#back to my original point: kalego and aizawa are so fkn similar i want to chew glass#i can't decide whether they're incarnations of each other or they'd be besties who sit in silence together#and never speak a word to the other bc they have a deep respect and understanding of each other speech is unnecessary#OR if they're somehow brothers or cousins#if it was anywhere near april fools i'd probs just edit my icon to be kelego instead of aizawa#and see how long it'd take for someone to notice lol
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ooooooh this got me so bad i needed to take a break and cover my face with a pillow and sob. also i can’t believe he gets rashes when he’s stressed too like same. dermatitis gang.
#i had so many skin issues through my undergrad… i still do have a lot lol#it ended up being a theme in some of my projects#go get some steroid cream and sleep and stretch your wrists honey please i’m so worried for you i’m so so worried for you#(said the guy who needs to do those things too)#if i can’t love or take care of myself i can love and care for this fictional boy#pangs reactions: blue period#<- decided to make a tag for posts like this. for liveblogging or just my thoughts on whatever i’m reading/watching/etc
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i was expecting so much more from skibidi toilet games. he says
#vinesauce#i dont think im going to be liveblogging this but if i end up deciding to ill add my tag to this post
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The scream I scrumpt when Daemon and Rhaenyra kissed yoooo wtf
#have no got or house of the dragon tags blocked I just don’t follow anyone who watched I guess#and I decided to start it on a whim yesterday#anyway I thought she was gonna end up w criston or whatever but maybe she marries Daemon for power and hooks up w C#that would make more sense I was like surely she can’t marry the knight she would totally get locked from the line of succession for that#house of the dragon#hotd#got#diary#liveblogging
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Solaris reads Murder as a Second Language, by Joan Hess (2013)
So yeah, this was the book I made the poll about. As this is a murder mystery I'm liveblogging, it's very likely I'll spoil the killer for you. Block the tag "solaris reads murder as a second language" if you don't want spoilers.
Murder as a Second Language is the 19th book in the Claire Malloy Mysteries and the first book by Joan Hess I've read. Last year I listened to about 30 minutes of the audiobook before DNF'ing it because of how trashy the first couple chapters were. Well, now I'm back, and we're going to see how bad the rest of it is.
MAASL picks up shortly after our main character Claire, long-time local business owner, has married Deputy Chief Peter Rosen, and just before she packs her daughter Caron off to college. To get into the college she wants, Caron has to spend the summer doing volunteer work, and Claire - now faced with the possibility of spare time - decides to volunteer as well. When a murder happens in town, Claire and Peter team up to solve the case.
Well, let's see what I've gotten myself into...
[Transcript: "Inez found thsi really cool place where we can volunteer to teach English as a second language to foreigners. It's like four hours a week, and we arrange our own schedules. I figure that if we're there from eleven to noon, we'll have plenty of time to go to the lake and the mall." /end]
Just setting up some background here. Caron has picked fairly easy volunteer work that gives her plenty of time to still enjoy summer, and only really has to devote 40 odd hours to it. As far as last-minute requirements to get into college go, Caron has it pretty damn easy.
Or maybe not. See, she has to attend a training session and...
[Transcript: "Yeah," Caron muttered. "The training session was interminable. The teacher basically read aloud from the manual while we followed along, like we were illiterate. We broke for pizza and then listened to her drone on for another four hours. After that, the executive director, some pompous guy named Gregory Whistler, came in and thanked us for volunteering. I was so thrilled that I almost woke up."
"Then it got worse," Inez said. "The program director, who's Japanese and looks like she's a teenager, told us that because of the shortage of volunteers in the summer we would each get four students - and meet with them twice a week for an hour."
"For a total of Eight Hours." Caron's sigh evolved into an agonized moan. "We have to call them and find a time that's mutually convenient. It could be six in the morning or four in the afternoon. We may never make it to the lake." /end]
How heartbreaking! Caron, on the cusp of adulthood, faces a fraction of the responsibilities she will face in a year when she goes off to college! Her life is truly difficult (sarcasm)
[Transcript: "And I," Caron said, rolling her eyes, "have to tutor an old lady from Poland, a Chinese man, an Iranian woman, and a woman from Russia. How am I supposed to call them on the phone? They don't speak English. Like I speak Polish, Chinese, Russian, and whatever they speak in Iran. This is a nightmare, and I think we ought to just quit now. I say we set up a lemonade stand and donate the proceeds to some charity." /end]
And it gets worse (heavy sarcasm)! Did you know that people who need to learn English as a second language don't speak English perfectly? Caron is right to throw away the chance to go to a good college over this (heavy sarcasm)
Anyway, all is saved, because Claire promises to volunteer as well and take some of their students off their hands so Caron doesn't give up and go to the local community college instead. Personally I'd say a good parent would make their child take responsibility for themselves, but what do I know. This post is getting long, so check the reblogs for how well that works out for everyone
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i saw that you're currently reading my stand-in novel but you're not really spoiling anything. how are you finding it so far if i may ask? is it as angsty as people say it is?
(i waited until the end of the day to answer this because as i thought i've already finished the novel, so much for self-restraint lol also sorry this got a bit long... oops?)
i enjoyed it a lot! and it made me get over my reading slump, so i will even excuse it getting into some tropes i'm not particularly fond of at the end. it got cheesy…er, and not even in a way i like. amazingly, that didn't make me like it any less.
from the synopsis of the series and the tags in novel updates (and i only skimmed those because i didn't want to get spoiled) i had a pretty good idea of what the novel was going to be like, which is why i decided not to really liveblog since, transmigration aside, i'd say it's a pretty straightforward story. i could be persuaded to make a recap if there's interest though, since there's still over three weeks left until the series starts airing and i'm probably going to go over everything again and take notes anyway...
and oh, is it angsty! the whole thing hinges on zhou xiang (joe) being a sweet angel baby and yan mingxiu (ming) being a fucking idiot, and it's pretty much what you can expect from any dogblood/makjang with the scum ml, misunderstandings, heartbreak, regrets, etc. i have to say i'm not usually a fan of the misunderstanding trope bc i tend to find it annoying, but as with most tropes i don't particularly enjoy it's because of the way i often see it done. here it was painful for everyone involved, so i really liked it. also, please keep in mind that i'm a huge fan of big character development and characters redeeming themselves, so. there's that. wink wonk. (i've been reading some reviews and think for some people it may be best to know what kind of story this is before going in, other than because of triggers–which, very important if you need them, at least in the novel–because of the whole. scum ml more than anything lol even though yan mingxiu is not that scummy really!)
i love my stories character-driven, so having them being this well fleshed out and compelling was a joy, and being able to see so clearly what both zhou xiang and yan mingxiu were thinking and feeling, sometimes a lot earlier than they themselves could (please bl gods keep at least some of the internal monologue in the series, i am begging), was soooooo ugh. you're supposed to hate yan mingxiu allegedly but i just couldn't, not even in his scum era, because he was so obvious and so oblivious and so set in his own ideas he kept gaslighting himself into not noticing things. this could have gotten frustrating pretty easily, but again, everything feed into the delicious, delicious suffering. that being said, and because it doesn't seem to be a popular opinion... i think it's important to empathise with both of them, or at least sympathise, for maximum enjoyment of all that angst. you cannot cry over yan mingxiu's pain if you want him to get hit by a bus.
oh and the relationships (not only the cp's, though their progression is really good) are very important in this story, which is something i hope we get to see more of in the series because i ended up missing certain side characters in the later chapters. not tan yin though, i hope that fuck ass didn't make it into the series. how is a character so annoying while being in maybe six scenes total.
i can't say if it's good or not but it was extremely enjoyable, zhou xiang is my sweet darling angel baby, yan mingxiu is okay too (if you see me in the trenches defending him in about a month…), and i can't believe i am now, somehow, even more excited for my stand-in.
#professional body double#my stand in#my stand in the series#asks#anon#didn't get into any specifics bc everything i would have said is a spoiler yippee#so yeah i didn't want to spoil anything so this is kinda . but feel free to ask anything!#my fav character is zhou xiang my fav character development is also zhou xiang's#again not to spoil but: aaaa#tan yin can come if he gets reworked to hell and back and kisses lan xirong btw#i have a weirdly specific wishlist for him now#and by 'him' i mean lan xirong
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End and the Death Vol II Liveblogging Thread
I'm making this as my official post from which I will add a chain of various points in the novel that make me go "what the fuck" in various degrees. Again, the tag for this is end and the death vol II spoilers if you want to blacklist it.
This thread is going to be very, very long, so I may decide to break it up at some nebulous point. We'll see.
And to kick it off, we have this, from the Interlude I, II, and III:
--
--
Time has completely stopped, and there is going to be the advent of a new god. Will it be Horus? The Emperor? Some other third thing? I'm very curious. Already enjoying the differing perspectives off the Interlude, definitely is showing off the scale of the Siege extends FAR beyond just the Solar System.
The most fascinating bit is that the farseers just... cannot see a future right now. Eldrad doesn't even know if it exists.
Also End and the Death counter: 1
#end and the death vol II spoilers#horus heresy#warhammer 30k#warhammer 40k#just to get this in the main tags in case people want to see the liveblogging
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I'm curious. What are your top 10 favorite shoujos of all time? (LN, Anime, Manga) Can you rank them from: I'll always love them and I'm very invested with them; to I like them, but I'm not very invested?
(why is it that the second someone asks me for anime recs or listing my fave series, I suddenly forget every series i ever read/watched lmao it is a curse)
Just as a reminder, these are series I either watched recently or remember at the top of my mind because of sheer popularity. Also, my bad in advance if it turns out some of these aren't shojo but shonen (reason I didn't include Skip&Loafer, for example).
With that out of the way, my top 10 fave shojos in order (that I would and have rewatched multiple times):
Revolutionary Girl Utena.
A classic. It's got it all: the esthetics, the slightly surreal aspect of the world, the trope deconstruction, tackling rarely addressed issues (such as patriarchy, heteronormativity, the changes puberty brings to a teenage girl, etc.) as well as some... more sensitive ones (there's a reason there's so many trigger warning lists for RGU). Also, the music SLAPS.
SAFT (both anime and LN).
Just look at my Sugar Apple Fairy Tale tag. I've liveblogged every episode of this show since I learned of its existence. I was looking forward to the previews. I fell into this head first and it was some of the best experience I had with a series!
It was right up my alley: sunshine hardworking girl winning over the people around her thanks to her kindness and optimism + grumpy stoic traumatized man who becomes softer and grows thanks to her set in a semi-fantasy Europe-based world.
I liked that both Anne and Shall had to deal with discrimination (Anne as a girl in a male-dominated industry, Shall as a fairy in a human-led society) and how the later LN volumes address those issues (instead of fairy slavery and sexism being just background lore).
The show can be really pretty when it wants to, and the music is also very nice.
7th Time Loop (both anime and LN).
Just like with SAFT, I'm obsessed. The anime is doing such a good job adapting the source material at a good pace, the quality is great, and the VAs are killing it.
The LN also has very tight writing: the author has an eye for adding details that seem unassuming/offhanded at first, but end up being crucial.
Rishe's and Arnold's characters and dynamic are phenomenal. Just look at my 7th time loop tag
Akatsuki no Yona (the anime/early corresponding manga arcs).
My Love Story with Yamada-kun at LVL 999.
Ouran High School Host Club (the anime).
I'm a sucker for romance, but where OHSHC got me is with its humor. The first episode is a classic, and I will always love the light bulbs scene as each member of the host club figures out Haruhi is a girl.
Tamaki is a riot, the perfect blend of goofy, perceptive, and introspective. He deals with some serious issues, but he never lets them drag him down or, at the very least, affect his precious ones.
What's great about OHSHC too is the character growth in the second half of the show. The series lures you in thinking it's just a comedic slice of life high school romance only to hit you with some real feels when it reveals its characters' backstories, fears, and reflections.
My Happy Marriage.
Kimi ni Todoke.
Ones for a cute ride: Lovely Complex, Kamisama Hajimemashita, Akagami no Shirayukhime, Donten Ni Warau
Ones I've watched that were good, but lost interest in (mostly due to being too long or me catching up the latest release and not keeping up after): Skip Beat, Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon (the 1990s anime), Niehime
Ones I remember watching but won't ever watch again because I've outgrown the target demographic: Special A, Shugo Chara, Tokyo Mew Mew, Fushigi Yugi, Itazura Kiss
Ones I heard good praise for and want to check someday: Rose of Versailles, Basara, Colette Decides to Die
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hiiii what are ur thots on the megaversal system? i’m currently in the midst of hyperfixation revival for TMNT, and i found there’s a TMNT rpg from ‘85 that uses that system, as well as one called ‘after the bomb’ that i think is a more open-ended version? (like not limited to just post-nuclear NYC jsgskdh)
the lifelong, childhood fan in me is like MUST HAVE ALL TMNT CONTENT while the Grown Adult is like. homie the chances of this rpg book from the 80’s being something you’ll actually enjoy reading/making a character for are Very Low
also there is not a lot out there abt this game jsgskdh like there was a pretty popular kickstarter last year, but the funding period ended so no luck there rly, and from one of the reviews i saw, they liked the world building/story side of things, but would’ve preferred the gurps system… which i am also unfamiliar with 🫣 oh and the game is called ‘teenage mutant ninja turtles & other strangeness’ if ur interested at all jsgskdh
but yeah do u think the megaversal system is like. approachable for newcomers to rpgs in general? i’m familiar w 5e, blades in the dark, and kids on brooms, but looking at all the unfamiliar terminology for megaversal is. intimidating 🤧
(also totally feel free to ignore this if it’s like way too much info to look into jsgskdh i do not want to take up your time 🫡)
okay, so I haven't actually played any Megaversal System games, but I am familiar with their reputation. Based on what I've heard the games that utilize it (RIFTS, Palladium Fantasy, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, Heroes Unlimited, and After the Bomb [which is basically the TMNT RPG but with the licensing removed once they lost the license]) are barely functional but have a strange charm to them! One of my favorite podcasts, System Mastery, are intimately familiar with the system and hearing them describe it is always a blast. If you want to learn about the games from two really funny guys for whom those games were a formative experience, I recommend checking them out!
So anyway those games are apparently pretty wild. I think they're decipherable by relative newcomers if you're willing to accept a bit of extremely eighties design. I don't know how much of that will be rectified in the upcoming rerelease. But don't take my word for it, because the internet is a beautiful place and with a little bit of digging on your local free-rpg-pdfs-legally-i-swear dot gov slash co dot uk you should be able to find PDFs of the original game
But now is when I yap about a completely different but related game, because as it happens game designer Julian Kay's first RPG as a child was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness, and as an adult Julian decided to make an homage to that game called Mutants in the Now. Now, unlike Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness I have actually read Mutants in the Now, and what I can say based on simply reading it is that it is a fantastically written RPG with a lot of love for its subject matter and the game system actually seems functional! The character creation system is wild, consisting mostly of rolling on random tables to discover who your character is, and the actual game system owes a lot to 13th Age (a modern D&D clone that Julian has written for and that is actually pretty dang good!) in addition to the Megaversal System. There's a few quirks that are mostly there out of homage to the Megaversal System to my knowledge (skills are d100 roll under, while combat pretty much works like any ol' D&D with d20 rolls to hit and various types of dice for damage) but ultimately it is a very coherent system.
Anyway the presentation in Mutants in the Now was so strong I immediately ordered it and its supplement Mutants in the Next, and I don't have a single regret about my purchase. I actually liveblogged the (admittedly intensive) character creation process. You can find them if you look under the tag #mutants in the making. Now Mutants in the Now is slightly more complex than 5e, but most of the complexity is front-loaded into character creation. The gameplay is about on par with 5e in terms of complexity.
Anyway I'm not sure how helpful that is but it at least gave me a chance to gush about one of the coolest games I've discovered during the last year. If you're interested in a game with actual TMNT branding I recommend looking into the original game if you can find it before you make any decisions or wait for word from Kickstarter backers about the revised edition whether it's good or bad. But, like, Mutants in the Now is also there if you're not too particular about the branding and just want to play cool mutant animals and enjoy random character creation where you get to really experience finding out who your character is during the process of creation.
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Thanks for keeping us updated on The Whisperer!
Question: Are you rooting for any of the characters or couples, or is this more a situation of eat popcorn and watch the messy chaos unfold?
You're so welcome! I'm glad you like it ^^
I figured I might as well, since it turned out something not the general public would want to watch for themselves, and I can turn it into a crack and funny experience (I hope :')), and you can decide that way if you want to watch it for yourself after all.
I know I had literally nothing to do with the show ending up disappointing, but I kinda weirdly feel responsible for seeing it through, since I've been hyping it up for so long....
Should I have started liveblogging it sooner? I didn't want to spoil it for the people who couldn't watch it, so I just posted my favorite shots and that's it...
Well, at least I'll be liveblogging it going forward, so there's that ^^
-> If anyone is not interested in seeing that just block: #twts lb
I'll always tag my posts with tw like: gore, fake blood, abuse etc, if they apply as well anyway.
As for your question, like I said yesterday: no, I do not hope for any of them to stay/get together, and they all need proper help as individuals, or to simply gtfo of each other's lifes.
Fluke's character Khun/Koon being the first in the line (mental), and his ever going missing nephew being second (just get him out of there, somewhere with responsible adults).
Though Vit (the scheming neighbour) and Taw (Khun's bf) kind of deserve each other, we're still waiting for the grand reveal of Why TF is Vit doing all this, because I do not believe in the ~love at first sight~ bullshit he's trying to sell *eyeroll*.
Even if any of them get happy ending it'll still be with a sinister backstory, there is no saving this show atp.
I'm here for the mess, with my fingers hovering over the printscreen and fast forward buttons lol
I do however wish we get to see more of these two beautiful human beings together, because just look at them:
the one with the manbun is Vit/Wit more of him here
the one with the gorgeous long hair is George (hehe see what I did there) more of him here
more of the both of them together here
Vit hired George to pretend to be his boyfriend in front of Taw's work colleagues.
He only showed up for the first time yesterday in episode 7, and wasn't included in the preview for the next one, but I hope and pray he'll be at least in one more 🙏
They put him in the opening credits, so he has to appear again right 🥺?
#genuinely thank you for your message#i'll try to keep you updated as best as i can ^^#the whisperer the series#conversation with gillianthecat
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I posted 23,379 times in 2022
That's 12,272 more posts than 2021!
5,012 posts created (21%)
18,367 posts reblogged (79%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@/gardenergulfie
@/harley-the-pancake
@/simplydm
@/bananasofthorns
@/starsandfluff
I tagged 20,218 of my posts in 2022
Only 14% of my posts had no tags
#from the queue - 11,399 posts
#answered - 2,886 posts
#stream liveblogging - 822 posts
#hermitcraft - 555 posts
#ask game - 354 posts
#double life spoilers - 213 posts
#hermitcraft spoilers - 196 posts
#a bee fic - 177 posts
#joe hills - 171 posts
#empires smp - 130 posts
Longest Tag: 138 characters
#i love grian’s weird contradictory ‘is immediately bound by any rules of competition and won’t break them even if they’re all in his head’
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
[image ID: two pictures of joe in his daughter's homemade zombiecleo costume. /end ID]
...oh my god,
4,233 notes - Posted October 26, 2022
#4
huge fan of how they did this 1.20 update so far. the changes really do feel like “they are doing things to make minecraft more minecraft”, just adding several small things that makes everything feel nicer is exactly what i want from an update. just… small details! huge fan of that! also a big fan of them going “we are only going to show you features that are done”. it does mean we don’t actually get to know what they’re planning until it’s about to be in a snapshot, which will be an adjustment, but it’ll prevent all the nonsense that happened around 1.19, so I’m a fan. overall, like how 1.20 is looking!
4,370 notes - Posted October 15, 2022
#3
genuinely all the pairs are insane. shoutout, for example, to tango and jimmy, the single most doomed pair of people i can possibly imagine. mr. “dies with tragic futility” and mr. “dies first despite his best efforts” are on the same team AND one of them was already blown up by a creeper. i cannot imagine a more “will die first” pairing. those poor boys i’m already planning their funeral,
5,032 notes - Posted June 17, 2022
#2
“Alright,” Jevin says, “now you just have to give the egg basket back.”
Grian stares at him with big, black, soulful eyes, and holds the basket closer to himself. “...give... you... the eggs...?”
Jevin closes his eyes and mentally counts to five before opening them again. “Yeah. That was the point of the game, right? Collect the eggs and then give them back to prove you’d found them.”
Grian continues to stare.
“So you hand me the basket...”
“Are... are you keeping an eye on them?” Grian asks.
“Keeping an eye on the eggs.”
“Well, it’s a dangerous world out there,” Grian says. “You never know when some maniac with TNT might show up. Probably best to just keep these in my ne- base. Keep these in my base.”
“A maniac with TNT?“ says Jevin, in a tone of voice he hopes conveys exactly who the maniac with TNT normally is on the server.
“You never know,” Grian says. “You’ve seen the eggs now. You know I found them. Really, what do you need all those eggs for? Surely you won’t miss these, right?”
Jevin sighs. “Yes, but I need the eggs to prove you didn’t cheat. You can’t win unless you turn them in.”
Grian stares blankly at Jevin, big black eyes watering as he tries to decide between winning (a thing Grian is very bad at giving up on) and, presumably, some stupid bird instinct that’s refusing to let him let go of the eggs. Jevin’s not sure which one is winning. He is sure, however, that he is slightly regretting making the egg hunt actually use eggs.
Because, he thinks wryly, it’s hardly just Grian.
“Jevin,” Doc says, landing on the platform to the egg hunt central area. Grian makes a sound somewhere between a hiss and a squawk and pulls his shulker full of carefully-padded and protected eggs closer to his chest. “I have found all of my eggs.”
“Excellent! Now, if you’ll hand them over -”
Doc is holding a shulker close to his chest. “Give you my eggs? Don’t be ridiculous.”
...the worst part, Jevin thinks, as he tries to figure out how to negotiate with a bunch of hybrids who haven’t slept in too long and therefore don’t realize they’re being irrational, is that the others are almost certainly going to insist on playing again next year. Something about optimal hiding spots. Next year, though, he swears: he’s not calling them eggs.
5,705 notes - Posted April 20, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
general writing advice, actually: you don’t need an excuse beyond “BUT WOULDN’T THIS BE COOL” to write something into your fic. write things in solely because they make you cackle with the delight of a 12-year-old-boy playing with his dinosaur toys. it’s fun and there’s nothing stopping you or any of us at all any longer.
20,415 notes - Posted February 25, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#year in review#.....amazing that for some reason this tags everyone by default. fascinating#anyway looking at the other people i see this from. looking at my own numbers#is it possible. i post too much#no clearly it is the tumblr statistics that are wrong -
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Mid-Year Book Meme (2023)
@sixappleseeds said that anyone who wanted to could do this so I have decided that includes me
1. Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2023? I've read a lot of good books this year! Some Desperate Glory by Emily Tesh was a good read, the Will Darling trilogy by KJ Charles was also really good. My favourite debut so far is To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose. Some others will be used later but have a right to be here too.
2. Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2023? The Mysteries of Thorn Manor by Margaret Rogerson! Nice fun sequel novella that ties up some loose ends and lets readers spend more time with the characters (and the house, which has Opinions).
3. New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To? The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon is next on my list. And on my library borrows pile.
4. Most Anticipated Release For Second Half of 2023? Moon of the Turning Snow by Waubgeshig Rice is definitely up there, as are A Power Unbound by Freya Marske and The Salvation Gambit by Emily Strutskie.
5. Biggest Disappointment? Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall, which made me feel like my brain was being eaten by gummy worms. In a bad way.
6. Biggest Surprise? A Half-built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys! I was expecting to like it, but I wasn't expecting how often I just... think about it apropos of nothing now. It's one of the first cli-fi stories that is optimistic but avoids becoming too saccharine for my taste.
7. Favorite New Author? Terry Pratchett is kind of new to me, I had read Nation but this was my first time picking up Discworld books. KJ Charles is the other new author whose work I've read quite a bit of this year.
8. Newest Favorite Character? I don't have that many characters that I'm WILDLY attached to any characters that I read about this year. Emily Wilde from Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is very good. I like that she's better at relating to fae than humans due to autism social awkwardness of no particular diagnosis I'm sure.
9. Newest Fictional Crush? *flashback to that time everyone thought I was lying when I said I didn't have a crush on anyone during an icebreaker due to my brain going completely blank* Uhhh...
10. Book That Made You Cry? And This is How to Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, in the The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 collection definitely brought tears to my eyes (older sibling FEELINGSSSSS etc), but the last book had me an utter wreck was last year when I read Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.
11. Book That Made You Happy? The Luminaries by Sarah Dennard was fun and made me laugh as I liveblogged it for my friends. A Half-built Garden also merits a second mention because it was nice to find a book in the genre that didn't make me either deeply despairing or violently annoyed.
12. Favorite Book Adaptation You Saw This Year? I guess Nimona wins by default, I don't think I've watched any other adaptations.
13. Favorite Review You’ve Written This Year? I guess my June reading list wins by default also because I don't think I've written any other reviews.
14. Most Beautiful Cover? The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty has a gorgeous cover, I like that it looks kind like it's printed from woodcuts almost.
15. What Books Do You Need To Read By The End of The Year? The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill is on my list.
And I'm tagging: @lloonlloon, @notpuckconnolly, and whoever else wants to do it!
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Ep 5: Ben and Misty
Hello! This is about up to Episode 5 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY episode 5 of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond the fifth episode, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me. Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please just fucking block the tag
If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.
Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open
Poor Ben here is trapped as an authority figure. Travis could overpower him, fuck, the girls could overpower him, he relies on Misty, and yet he still has the vestiges of authority because we are only now beginning to see that the old world no longer holds sway.
The quasi-religious tone when Misty walks into his room to touch him was a really amazing thing, and it’s true, though, that for Misty, this is on the level of a miracle. A man she finds handsome needs her, she spends all her time in his light, she goes toward him with the reverence of a saint. And he rejects her. He tells her not to fucking touch him. We even see a cross on the wall as she leaves the room.
So if even someone she has done so much for, someone she has devoted herself toward, cannot love her, they have to pay. Now, the question I have for myself is: Do I think Misty actually wants to kill him, or do I think that it’s more a price she is willing to pay in order to get him close to her again, to need her? I think it might be number two, but I also think establishing that she is willing to kill someone to get what she needs is a very important thing we need to know about Misty.
Him losing his leg works on multiple levels here, of course it’s a device to get him close to Misty for the express purposes of ‘oh my god holy shit fuckin Misty,’ but also, it’s a symbol, a visual reminder of the fact that his power and authority is quite literally crippled here. We are seeing him slowly lose control of the situation, even as the girls are continuing to follow him, even as Travis still listens, there’s this absolute edge of losing control in the air.
And he senses this, and this is why he reacts to Misty’s stange confession of love by calling himself into her protection with his own, while clinging to this fractured and lost authority as a gate between he and Misty. How long will that gate hold? What can he cling to then, and how far might he go to keep from getting killed by Misty in the pain of her rejection?
Because make no mistake, all of this is about Misty and her feeling of rejection, and in the way they continue to push in this story that I love, the rejected nerd is not sitting in the corner crying, we are not meant to identify with her, we are meant to see that she instead decides that those who reject her should be punished.
Which is why it is so terrifying when she sees Nat call her a poodle haired frreak at the end of the episode. She thought the threat of being blackmailed would make them appreciate her, need her. But instead, this.
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(liveblog tag in chronological order)
Oh dear.
Okay, Lion-O has matured past the worst of his flaws, I will maintain that, but he's still capable of making mistakes. Like, for example, giving in to the insecurity left over from his last stinging rejection and impulsively doing something really shady.
But luckily, Tygra saves him from making possibly the worst mistake he could've made. And I think it's on purpose. With the angle he approached from, he would've seen Lion-O doing something shady and he probably decided to intervene as his big brother.
Tygra looks very proud of himself here, so I can't help but think he knew exactly what he was doing.
And even if he hadn't stepped in, this hare-brained scheme wouldn't have worked anyway if Pumyra ended up not drinking from that cup for the rest of the night.
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9 People You'd Like to Get To Know Better?
Tagged by @mysteriouslybluepirate, hey, thanks!
Last song: "Rejoice" by Devin Townsend. I don't know when I became this idiot who decided to give prog-metal's yelliest weirdo a chance but also ended up liking a good bit of his shit, but here we are. He's a massive dork, but he is...unfailingly sincere, so even his lyrics that make me cringe kinda help me tip my hat to him regardless.
Currently watching: Honestly, at the end of the day, I watch Farscape on Tubi to help me unwind. Or the Nanny. Nothing substantial in the sense that I haven't seen it already, but it means something to me regardless. Ambient television when I don't want music on.
That said, Money In the Bank. Right winners so far, wrong results, if that makes sense. My smarter, more passionate wrestling friends are already spilling on what needs to happen and why, and they're the reason I never liveblog anymore. :)
Currently reading: The Erstwhile, the second book in Brian Catling's so-far excellent Vorrh trilogy. The man was a gifted user of words and the world is incredibly realized. It's also the kind of odd dark I enjoy; it's not just "climbing with bloody fingers out of a hole only to be killed anyway" Cormac McCarthy-ness in narrative (so far, there's another book! No spoilers.)
Current obsession: Nothing out of the ordinary, I guess? I'm obsessed with music and wrestling and cartoons and the same silly but VERY important shit around which industries have been built. Specifics? Horror movie psychology books. Roland Barthes. Ween. Character actors. Books about who is a sociopath and who isn't, and what are the signs. Charismatic strangers who change your life and them being linked to the previous idea.
My least favorite part of these...the people I wanna know more about I feel like have a guarded sense of their privacy (and if I want to know more things about them I will ask them), the people I know enough about I'm happy with the information I know, and the ones I consider personal friends I feel like that we'll get there if we need to.
But...@shes-a-voodoo-child, @werewolves, @gracejones, @kydtyk, @brightlovebird, @mortuaryschool, @little-lady-trashcan, @funeralopolis666, @mutter2001, @barbieland
No pressure, any of you, promise!
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